With all of the (mostly) crap and fluff that we've populated our 10-minute movie reviews with so far, A Single Man is going to seem very out of place. It's not really a movie to make fun of, at least not yet. Perhaps clowns and monkeys are gonna play a key role down the line (those are the funniest things I can think of right now), but there's been no sign of either yet.

The first ten minutes of A Single Man are sloooooow. And beautiful. And while the emotions are not running too high just yet, I have a feeling they're about to. The movie opens with a dream of Colin Firth's lover's death, and so far not much has happened except for the dream, his waking up, narrating all the while, and a flashback to the phone call informing him of his lover's death. Not much, but it's pretty powerful nonetheless.

I'm guessing that I'm going to like this movie a lot, in the way that I liked Far From Heaven and The Hours and Exotica and The Sweet Hereafter -- all slow, powerful, beautifully shot movies. I'm definitely going to keep watching and hope that it joins the ranks of those movies.

I have no idea what Jess is going to say in her review, but my guess is that she likes it too. After all, she's gay for gay people, and this movie's got no shortage of 'em.

FOLLOW-UP

I did like the movie a lot, and it remained gorgeous throughout. However, it didn't grip me quite as much the aforementioned movies did, and it also remained slow. So I'm bumping it down half a star. Still though, a very good, powerful, beautifully shot movie.

FIRST 10 MINUTES

Hmmm. Well, usually I have some sort of witty observation about a random moment in a film, but I have nothing witty to say. Thus far, everything about this film is beautiful. The dialogue, beautiful. The production design, beautiful. The cinematography, beautiful. The British accents, beautiful.

This is feeling like it could be a favorite film for me. There are gay men in this film, and gay men are my favorite. Sorry straight men, woman, lesbians and cats.

Anyhow, I am excited to keep watching. So far, it's pretty stunning and I'm curious about how Julianne Moore will play into things. Will someone give her an Oscar already??

JESS SLEEP METER

(Bri: Okay, the movie IS slow, so I think she did pretty well to last 50 minutes. I know she likes the movie, so I'm gonna stop the DVD and we'll resume tomorrow.)

FOLLOW-UP

What?? When did the annoying kid from About a Boy become a hot young adult? How have we never seen this before? Perhaps he has been in hiding up until this film, perhaps in some sort of hot camp. Anyhow, the film remained beautiful, but the pacing was a tad too slow at times. Overall, I liked it a lot, but once again... gay men. Totally biased.